January 22, 2010

A Futile Constitutional Exercise, But a Nice Shibboleth Nonetheless

I would love to see Republicans in House and Senate propose the following amendment to the United States Constitution; it's short, simple, and substantive:

The rights, liberties, privileges, and immunities protected by this Constitution shall apply only to United States citizens and legally resident or visiting aliens, not found to have taken up arms against the United States of America.

I'm not deluded enough to think it would find even a majority in either chamber, let alone the two-thirds necessary to move it to the state legislatures. But at the very least, I would love to see Democrats squirm as they're forced by the Left to vote against it.

I want to hear their arguments, as they ponder the looming elections, why we should extend the Constitution to cover both illegal aliens and enemy combatants. And I'll bet their positions will further alienate them from Republicans and Independents, and even from quite a few patriotic Democrats.

Comments

The following hissed in response by: BarbaraS

One thing wrong with your amendment, Dafyyd..."not found to have taken up arms against the US". Not found by whom? Wouldn't that involve a trial for some and isn't that a loophole for others? Lawyers are tricky and so is this president and his attorney general.

I'll take a swing at this one, Dafydd... from a Conservative's point of view.

Rights, Liberties, privileges and immunities are not granted by the US Constitution... nor are they protected by it. Directly. They are recognized in the Constitution, sure. Those who would diminish them are restricted, absolutely. Granted, as a result, they are protected, but not so much by any phrase saying "X is hereby protected."

I think it's called "Natural Law". (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm pretty sure, but not totally.) The basic idea is that our Constitution recognizes specific basic, pre-existing and immutable Rights and Ideals. It specifically limits Congress in what it can do about others.

As a result... it can very easily be understood that these Rights (granted by God) are the Rights of all Men, everywhere. Our Government can't take them away from Citizens of Japan, nor should it try.

Unless.

Unless they are at War with the United States. In that case, "Providing for the Common Defense" is a survival issue, and a new set of rules... "War Powers"... come into play. AT THAT POINT, we Historically have temporarily set aside the Rights recognized in the Constitution for our own CITIZENS, much less the enemy.

This, I think, is why the Democrats are so reluctant to recognize that we are at War with the Islamic Terrorists who have declared War against us. Because if they DO recognize that a State of War exists, they have to recognize that the President's War Powers come into play. They just don't like that at all.

Rights, Liberties, privileges and immunities are not granted by the US Constitution... nor are they protected by it. Directly. They are recognized in the Constitution, sure.

The Constitution does not agree with you. Nor do the great majority of conservative legal scholars - Bork, Scalia, etc.

I think it's called "Natural Law".

The trouble with Natural Law is that opinions differ as to what Natural Law says. So who should get to make that decsion? In our system, the people are supposed to decide.

The rights, liberties, privileges, and immunities protected by this Constitution shall apply only to United States citizens and legally resident or visiting aliens, not found to have taken up arms against the United States of America.

This was the standard understanding of the Constitution until a few years ago. The German spies who were plotting to blow things up over here were not accorded the full range of Constitutional protections. (For that matter, nor were the AXIS POW's who where kept in camps in the US.)

The above hissed in response by: flenser at January 23, 2010 5:53 PM

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